wandering london
Last month I spent 2 days in London to see my long and dear friend Rosalie from my undergrad years :) It had been a year since we last met so it was so very nice to catch up and explore London together!
On Saturday I took the bus from Oxford and met up with her and her friend visiting as well at the Borough Market where we went a little overboard with all the deliciously looking food stands! We got freshly squeezed juices, chocolate covered strawberries, and the must-have mushroom risotto🍄 The market was overcrowded with very little space to walk so we got all the food we wanted and stood in the corner to enjoy our food away from the crowd. Everything we had was tasty but my personal favorite was the mushroom risotto- with fresh mushroom and all the cheese you could imagine :)
Later we took the tube and walked around Baker Street, stopped at Gail’s for break #2 from the crowd, and walked to Hyde Park and Holland Park for an evening stroll. Hyde Park was beautiful as always and we went to see Holland Park to visit the Japanese garden inside. It was much smaller than we expected and the pond in the park wasn’t taken care of so it was a bit of a let down. Nevertheless, we got a little dose of Tokyo nostalgia and sat on the park bench to take a breather from the long walk. You can also visit the 2 peacocks residing in the park as well!
London decided to rain all day on Sunday so we spent a lot of it indoors walking around Marylebone visiting Daunt Books, Uniqlo, Muji, and all the other shops around the area. We also unexpectedly found a small cafe inside LUSH that served some amazing matcha and houjicha lattes which we thoroughly enjoyed while catching up :) Later that night we got some Japanese food at a restaurant we stumbled upon near Bond Street Station and parted ways since I had to return to Oxford that night.
**Credits to the wonderful Rosalie for all the photos :)
Despite the rain the second half of the trip, I had lots of fun spending time with Rosalie- what a soothing and special weekend it was :) Next time will be in Paris with Alizee ♡